Richard Lloyd – Court Ruling (United Kingdom, 2021)

Google secretly tracked Apple iPhone users between late 2011 and early 2012 and using their data collected in that way for commercial purposes. Google bypassed privacy settings on Apple iPhones and the default blocking of third party cookies on Safari with its “DoubleClick Ad” cookie by relying on an exception devised by Apple. Google placed this cookie without the user’s knowledge or consent. This cookie was enabled if users visited a website that included DoubleClick Ad content (advertising content). The cookie identified visits by a specific device on websites using this advertising content, including data and time of visit; time spent by the user on the website; what advertisement was viewed for how long; and using IP address, the user’s geographical location. As a result, Google could infer the user’s internet surfing habits, location, as well as interests, race or ethnicity, social class, political or religious beliefs, health, sexual interests, age, gender and financial situation. Google then used this aggregated information to give them labels (eg “football lovers”) and eventually offering these group labels to advertising organisations looking to target specific groups when using Google’s DoubleClick service. This allegation was brought in the US and Google settled a charge of $22.5 million with the US Federal Trade Commission and $17 million to settle consumer based actions in the US. Three individuals in the UK sued Google in 2013 for the same allegation and their claim was settled by Google (Vidal-Hall v Google Inc). Lloyd has filed a claim before the UK courts on behalf of everyone that resides in England and Wales and owned an Apple iPhone at the time of the secret tracking. Lloyd filed this class action with the intention of recovering damages for more than 4 million people affected. He claimed that compensation (£750 suggested) should be awarded under the Data Protection Act 1998 for loss of control of personal data without having to demonstrate